The Italian food environment may confer protection from hyper-palatable foods: evidence and comparison with the United States

The Italian food environment may confer protection from hyper-palatable foods: evidence and comparison with the United States

Blog Article

BackgroundMulti-national food corporations may saturate country-level food systems with hyper-palatable foods.However, the degree to which global food corporations have been integrated into country-level food systems may vary.Italy has largely retained local food production and may have low hyper-palatable food (HPF) availability in the food supply.The study quantified the prevalence of HPF in the Italian food system Military Airplane and compared the hyper-palatability of similar foods across Italy and the United States, which has wide HPF saturation.

MethodsA national food system dataset was used to characterize HPF availability in Italy.A representative sample of foods commonly consumed in both Italy and the US were collected and compared.Foods represented six categories: cookies/biscotti, cakes/merendine, salty snacks, industrial bread, frozen pizza and protein/cereal bars.A standardized definition from Fazzino et al.

identified HPF.ResultsLess than one third (28.8%) of foods in the Italian food system were hyper-palatable.US HPF Kratom Gummies items had significantly higher fat, sugar, and/or sodium across most food categories (p values = 0.

001 to 0.0001).Italian HPF items had higher fiber and/or protein relative to US HPF from the same category (p values = 0.01 to 0.

0001).ConclusionThe Italian food system may confer protection from HPF exposure.HPF products in Italy had lower palatability-related nutrients and higher satiety-promoting nutrients.